Video footage of Afro-Brazilian traditions in Maranhão shot by anthropologist Daniel Halperin. Footage includes documentation of a Danca de Lelé held in the village of Sao Simao, Rosario area, and the Reis (Kings) Festival held in the Casa Das Minas in Sao Luis. Also documents the Candomble Festival of Sao Sebastiao at the Casa Fanti-Ashanti of Pai-de-Santo Euclides.
Legacy Keywords: Music chanting drumming singing ; Trance possession dancing ; Dance trance-possession Danca de Lelé folk Maranhão,Brazil ; Festivals Festival of Sao Sebastiao ; Festivals Reis (Kings) Festival ; Religion Casa das Minas ; Religion Casa Fanti-Ashanti ; Religion Tambor de Mina Candomble ; Religion Tambor de Mina Dahomean (Vodun) ; Ritual centers Casa Fanti-Ashanti ; Ritual centers Casa das Minas ; Ritual centers Tambor de Mina Candomble ; Ritual centers Tambor de Mina Dahomean (Vodun) Maranhão,Brazil ; Mediums Pai Euclides Maranhão, Brazil
General:
Local Numbers: HSFA 1992.4.1-1 RV
Collection Restrictions:
The collection is open for research. Please contact the archives for information on availability of access copies of audiovisual recordings. Original audiovisual material in the Human Studies Film Archives may not be played.
Collection Rights:
Contact the repository for terms of use.
Collection Citation:
Daniel Halperin videos of Afro-Brazilian traditions in Maranhão, Northern Brazil, Human Studies Film Archives, Smithsonian Institution
Video footage of Afro-Brazilian traditions in Maranhão shot by anthropologist Daniel Halperin. Documentation includes continuation of footage of a cura ritual at the Terreiro de Elzita in the Sacavem bairro of Sao Luis. Records the Anniversario para Ita at the Balanco Grande Terreiro of Mae-de-Santo Nelia, in Sao Jose Ribamar, Sao Luis. Documents various caboclos (spirits) of Euclides at the Casa Fanti-Ashanti during the Festa do Divino celebrations, and the Terreiro de Joao in Vila Nova during the Festa para Santa Ana (Nana Buruke). Documents bawdy discussion of the relationship between the caboclo, "Manuelzinho" and his medium, mae-de-santo, Dona Zizi. Records an interview with Pai Euclides after eating the comida de santo and his Santa Ana Tambor de Mina ritual. Includes footage of the Terreiro of the late Margarita Mota during the Festa para Dom Luis, the french monarch for whom the city of Sao Luis was named.
Legacy Keywords: Music chanting drumming singing ; Trance possession dancing ; Dance trance-possession ; Religion Tambor de Mina Candomble ; Religion Terreiro de Elzita Casa Fanti-Ashanti Balanco Grande Terreiro Terreiro de Margarita Mota Terreiro de Joao Maranhão,Brazil ; Ritual centers Casa Fanti-Ashanti Terreiro de Elzita Balanco Grande Terreiro Terreiro de Joao Terreiro de Margarita Mota ; Ritual centers Tambor de Mina Candomble ; Festivals Anniversario para Ita Festa do Divino Festa para Santa Ana (Nana Buruke) Festa para Dom Luis ; Rituals eating of comida de Santo Santa Ana ritual ; Rituals cura ritual ; Mediums Mae Nelia Pai Euclides Dona Zizi Pai Joao Maranhão, Brazil
General:
Local Numbers: HSFA 1992.4.1-4
Collection Restrictions:
The collection is open for research. Please contact the archives for information on availability of access copies of audiovisual recordings. Original audiovisual material in the Human Studies Film Archives may not be played.
Collection Rights:
Contact the repository for terms of use.
Collection Citation:
Daniel Halperin videos of Afro-Brazilian traditions in Maranhão, Northern Brazil, Human Studies Film Archives, Smithsonian Institution
Most of Ruth Landes's papers relate directly or indirectly to Landes's American Indian research, her work in Brazil, and her study of bilingualism. There is also a considerable amount of material that relates to her experiences (sometimes fictionalized) at Fisk University. There is only small amount of material related to her other interests. Her collection also has material of and relating to the Brazilian folklorist and journalist Edison Carneiro. There is also noteworthy material concerning Herbert Baldus, Ruth Benedict, Elmer C. Imes, Charles S. Johnson, and Robert E. Park. There is a large amount of printed and processed materials in the collection, mainly in the form of newspaper clippings and a collection of scholarly papers.
Scope and Contents:
This collection is mainly comprised of the professional papers of Ruth Schlossberg Landes. Included are correspondence, journals, published and unpublished manuscripts of writings, research materials including field notes and reading notes, photographs, drawings, scholarly papers and publications by other scholars, and clippings from newspapers and periodicals.
Landes's field research on Candomblé in Brazil is well-represented in this collection, consisting of her field journals, writings, and photographs. Also present are Maggie Wilson's stories that were the basis for Landes's The Ojibwa Woman. Unfortunately, Landes was unable to locate her journals for her early research with the Ojibwa/Chippewa, Potawatomi, and Dakota. There are, however, field photographs of the Ojibwa/Chippewa and Potawatomi in the collection. There is also a great deal of her research on groups, especially minorities, in multilingual states with particular focus on the French of Quebec, Basques of Spain and the United States, Boers and Blacks of South Africa, the several socio-linguistic groups of Switzerland, and Acadians (Cajuns) of Louisiana. In the collection are several drafts of her unpublished manuscript on bilingualism, "Tongues that Defy the State." There is also a small amount of material about Black Jews of New York and considerable material about Landes's experience among African Americans when she taught briefly at Fisk University, including her unpublished manuscript "Now, at Athens," containing fictional and autobiographical accounts of her time at Fisk.
Reflections of other facets of Landes's professional activities are also included. Some materials concern her teaching activities, and there is also documentation of her work with the Fair Employment Practices Commission (a federal government agency during the administration of Franklin D. Roosevelt) and a similar private organization which immediately succeeded the FEPA; Gunnar Myrdal's research into the plight of African Americans ("The Negro in America"); the Research in Contemporary Cultures project at Columbia University; and the American Jewish Congress.
Among Landes's correspondents are Ruth Benedict, Franz Boas, Margaret Mead, Ralph Bunche, Herbert Baldus, Edison Carneiro, Sally Chilver, Frances Densmore, Sol Tax, Elmer S. Imes, Charles S. Johnson, Robert E. Park, and Hendrik W. van der Merwe.
Arrangement:
The collection is organized into 6 series: (1) Correspondence, 1931-1991; (2) Research Materials, circa 1930s-1990; (3) Writings, circa 1930s-1990; (4) Teaching Materials, 1935-1975, undated; (5) Biographical and Personal Files, 1928-1988; (6) Graphic Materials, 1933-1978, undated
Biographical Note:
Ruth Schlossberg Landes was born on October 8, 1908 in New York City. Her father was Joseph Schlossberg, an activist in the Yiddish labor socialist community and one of the founders of the Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America. She studied sociology at New York University (B.A. 1928) and social work at the New York School of Social Work, Columbia University (M.S.W. 1929). While in graduate school, Landes studied Black Jews in Harlem for her master's thesis, a topic that developed her interests in anthropology.
After graduating in 1929, she worked as a social worker in Harlem and married Victor Landes, a medical student and son of family friends. Their marriage ended after two years when she enrolled in the doctoral program in anthropology at Columbia against her husband's wishes. She kept his surname due to the stigma of being a divorced woman.
At Columbia, Landes studied under Franz Boas and Ruth Benedict, her main advisor. Under the guidance of Benedict, Landes moved away from further study of African Americans to focus on Native American communities. Upon Benedict's suggestion, Landes studied the social organization of the Ojibwa in Manitou Rapids in Ontario from 1932 to 1936 for her Ph.D. fieldwork. Her dissertation, Ojibwa Sociology, was published in 1937. Landes also contributed "The Ojibwa of Canada" in Cooperation and Competition among Primitive Peoples (1937), a volume edited by Margaret Mead. In 1938, Landes published Ojibwa Women (1938), a book written in collaboration with Maggie Wilson, an Ojibwa interpreter and informant.
In addition to studying the Ojibwa in Ontario, Landes also conducted fieldwork with the Chippewa of Red Lake, Minnesota in 1933, working closely with shaman or midé Will Rogers. Her book, Ojibwa Religion and the Midéwiwin (1968) was based largely on her research with Rogers and Maggie Wilson. In 1935 and 1936, she undertook fieldwork with the Santee Dakota in Minnesota and the Potawatomi in Kansas. Like Ojibwa Religion and the Midéwiwin, her books on the Santee Dakota and Potawatomi were not published until several years later—The Mystic Lake Sioux: Sociology of the Mdewakantonwan Sioux was published in 1968 while The Prairie Potawatomi was published in 1970. In between her field research in the 1930s and the publication of The Prairie Potawatomi, Landes returned to Kansas to study the Potawatomi in the 1950s and 1960s.
Landes's plan to continue her studies with the Potawatomi in 1937 changed when Benedict invited her to join a team of researchers from Columbia University in Brazil. Landes was to conduct research on Afro-Brazilians in Bahia, Brazil, while Walter Lipkind, Buell Quain, and Charles Wagley studied indigenous people in the Amazons. To prepare for her research, Landes was at Fisk University in Nashville, Tennessee in 1937 and 1938 to consult with Robert Park and Donald Pierson and to use the university's library collections of African and African American materials. During that time, Landes also held a teaching position at Fisk and lived in the non-segregated women's residence on campus. Landes later wrote "Now, at Athens," an unpublished memoir containing fictional and true accounts of her experiences at Fisk.
From 1938 to 1939, Landes conducted fieldwork on the role of Afro-Brazilian women and homosexuals in the Candomblé religion in Bahia, Brazil. Unable to move freely by herself in Brazil as a single woman, Landes was accompanied by Edison Carneiro, a Bahian journalist and folklorist. With Carneiro as her companion, Landes was allowed access to rituals and people that would have been closed off to her otherwise. Due to her association with Carneiro, a member of the Brazilian Communist Party, Landes was suspected of being a communist and was forced to leave Bahia early. Publications from her research in Brazil include "A Cult Matriarchate and Male Homosexuality" (1940) and City of Women (1947). She returned to Brazil in 1966 to study the effects of urban development in Rio de Janeiro. In 1967, a Portuguese translation of City of Women was published, a project that Carneiro had commissioned as the first director of the Ministry of Education and Culture's Special National Agency for the Protection of Folklore.
Landes returned to New York in 1939, working briefly as a researcher for Gunnar Myrdal's study of African Americans. Unable to obtain a permanent position at a university, she worked in several other short term positions throughout most of her career. During World War II, Landes was a research director for the Office of the Coordinator for Inter-American Affairs (1941) and consultant for President Franklin D. Roosevelt's Fair Employment Practices Committee on African American and Mexican American cases (1941-44). In 1945, Landes directed a program created by Pearl S. Buck and a group of interdenominational clergy to analyze pending New York anti-discrimination legislation. She moved to California the following year to work for the Los Angeles Metropolitan Welfare Council on a study of race and youth gangs. After her contract ended, she moved back to New York and was hired as a contract researcher for the American Jewish Congress (1948-50). She also participated in Columbia University's Research in Contemporary Cultures (1949-51), studying Jewish families. She coauthored with Mark Zborowski, "Hypothesis concerning the Eastern European Jewish Family." From 1951 to 1952, Landes spent a year in London, funded by a Fulbright fellowship to study colored colonial immigrants and race relations in Great Britain.
After her fellowship ended, Landes returned to the United States and held short term appointments at several universities. She taught at the William Alanson White Psychiatric Institution in New York (1953-54), the New School for Social Research in New York (1953-55), University of Kansas (1957, 1964), University of Southern California (1957-62), Columbia University (1963), Los Angeles State College (1963), and Tulane University (1964). At Claremont Graduate School, Landes helped to develop and direct the Claremont Anthropology and Education Program (1959-62).
It was not until 1965 that Landes obtained a permanent faculty position at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario; she was recruited for the position by Richard Slobodin. Due to Ontario's age retirement law, Landes was forced to retire in 1973 at the age of 65. She continued to teach part-time until 1977, when she became professor emerita.
Landes passed away at the age of 82 on February 11, 1991.
Sources Consulted
Cole, Sally. 2003. Ruth Landes: A Life in Anthropology. Lincoln, Nebraska: University of Nebraska Press.
Chronology
1908 October 8 -- Born Ruth Schlossberg in New York City
1928 -- B.A. in sociology, New York University
1929 -- M.S.W., New York School of Social Work, Columbia University
1929-1931 -- Social worker in Harlem Married to Victor Landes
1929-1934 -- Studied Black Jews in Harlem
1931 -- Began graduate work in anthropology at Columbia University
1932-1936 -- Studied the Ojibwa in Ontario and Minnesota (in field periodically)
1933-1940 -- Research Fellow, Columbia University
1935 Summer-Fall -- Studied the Santee Sioux (Dakota) in Minnesota
1935-1936 -- Studied the Potawatomi in Kansas
1935 -- Ph.D., Columbia University
1937 -- Instructor, Brooklyn College
1937-1938 -- Instructor, Fisk University
1938-1939 -- Studied Afro-Brazilians and Candomblé in Brazil, especially at Bahia
1939 -- Researcher on Gunnar Myrdal's study, "The Negro in America"
1941 -- Research Director, Office of Inter American Affairs, Washington, D.C.
1941-1945 -- Representative for Negro and Mexican American Affairs, Fair Employment Practices Committee (FEPC), President Franklin D. Roosevelt Administration
1944 -- Interim Director, Committee Against Racial Discrimination, New York
1946-1947 -- Researcher, study of Mexican American youth, gangs, and families, Los Angeles Metropolitan Council
1948-1951 -- Researcher, American Jewish Congress, New York
1949-1951 -- Research consultant, study on Jewish families in New York for Research in Contemporary Cultures Project, Columbia University
1951-1952 -- Fulbright Scholar, to study colored colonial immigration into Great Britain
1953-1954 -- Lecturer, William Alanson White Psychiatric Institution, New York
1953-1955 -- Lecturer, New School for Social Research, New York
1956-1957 -- Married to Ignacio Lutero Lopez
1957 Summer -- Visiting Professor, University of Kansas
1957-1958 -- Visiting Professor, University of Southern California
1957-1965 -- Consultant, California agencies (Department of Social Work, Bureau of Mental Hygiene, Department of Education, Public Health Department) and San Francisco Police Department
1958-1959 -- Director, Geriatrics Program, Los Angeles City Health Department
1959-1962 -- Visiting Professor and Director of Anthropology and Education Program, Claremont Graduate School
1962 -- Extension Lecturer, University of California, Los Angeles and University of California, Berkeley
1963 -- Extension Lecturer, Columbia University Extension Lecturer, Los Angeles State College
1963-1965 -- Consultant, International Business Machines (IBM)
1964 January-June -- Visiting Professor, Tulane University
1964 Summer -- Field work with Potawatomi in Kansas Professor, University of Kansas
1965-1975 -- Professor at McMaster University
1966 -- Studied urban development in Rio de Janeiro
1968-1975 -- Studied bilingualism and biculturalism in Spain, Switzerland, South Africa, United States, and Canada (in Spain and the United States concentrated on Basques)
1975 -- Became part-time faculty member at McMaster University
1977 -- Professor Emerita, McMaster University
1978 -- Award of Merit from the University of Wisconsin, Green Bay
1991 February 11 -- Died in Hamilton, Ontario
1991 -- Establishment of the Ruth Landes Memorial Research Fund at Research Institute for the Study of Man (RISM)
Related Materials:
Correspondence from Ruth Landes can be found in the William Duncan Strong Papers, the Leonard Bloomfield Papers, and MS 7369. The Ruth Bunzel Papers contains a copy of a grant application by Landes.
Provenance:
These papers were donated to the National Anthropological Archives by Ruth Landes in 1991.
Restrictions:
The Ruth Landes papers are open for research. The nitrate negatives in this collection have been separated from the collection and stored offsite. Access to nitrate negatives is restricted due to preservation concerns.
Access to the Ruth Landes papers requires an appointment.
Rights:
Contact the repository for terms of use.
Topic:
Language and languages -- Documentation Search this
Ruth Landes papers, National Anthropological Archives, Smithsonian Institution
Sponsor:
The revision of this finding aid and digitization of portions of the collection were made possible through the financial support of the Ruth Landes Memorial Research Fund.
Photographs of Candomblé priestesses, sacred trees, fetish houses, and Capoeira from anthropologist Ruth Landes' 1938-1939 field research on Afro-Brazilians and Candomblé in Brazil in the city of Bahia (now known as Salvador). Also three versions of Landes' typed explanations of the prints. See individual catalog records under "Mounted field photographs from Bahia, Brazil" for digital images and captions for each print.
Local Numbers:
Image ID.landes_photo_brazil_91-4_0001-0015
Image ID.landes_photo_brazil_91-4_0001-0015note
Collection Restrictions:
The Ruth Landes papers are open for research. The nitrate negatives in this collection have been separated from the collection and stored offsite. Access to nitrate negatives is restricted due to preservation concerns.
Access to the Ruth Landes papers requires an appointment.
Ruth Landes papers, National Anthropological Archives, Smithsonian Institution
Sponsor:
The revision of this finding aid and digitization of portions of the collection were made possible through the financial support of the Ruth Landes Memorial Research Fund.
Photographs from anthropologist Ruth Landes' 1938-1939 field research on Afro-Brazilians and Candomblé in Brazil in the city of Bahia (now known as Salvador). Most of the images are of Candomblé high priestesses, their filhas, their Candomblé houses, and ceremonies. Among the priestesses represented in the photos are Aninha and her Candomblé house, llê Axé Opô Afonjá; Menininha and her Candomblé house, Gantois; Sabina, a Candomblé of Caboclo priestess, and her house; and Idalice, a Candomblé de Angola priestess. There are also photos of Martiniano E. Bonfim, a Candomblé priest (babalorixá); filhas of Joãozinho da Goméia; Villa Flaviana, the Candomblé house of Flaviana; Engenho Velho, one of the oldest Candomblé temples; and offering ceremonies to Iemanjá, mãe d'agua. Other images include the Bom Jesus dos Navegantes festival, the Lavagem do Bonfim festival, capoeira matches; a psychiatric hospital in Brotas; Quintas, an Afro-Brazilian settlement; and other neighborhoods in Salvador. A few photos are from other parts of Brazil, including Sugar Loaf Mountain in Rio de Janeiro. There are also images of Edison Carneiro and Ruth Landes.
Local Numbers:
Image ID.landes_photographs_brazil
Collection Restrictions:
The Ruth Landes papers are open for research. The nitrate negatives in this collection have been separated from the collection and stored offsite. Access to nitrate negatives is restricted due to preservation concerns.
Access to the Ruth Landes papers requires an appointment.
Ruth Landes papers, National Anthropological Archives, Smithsonian Institution
Sponsor:
The revision of this finding aid and digitization of portions of the collection were made possible through the financial support of the Ruth Landes Memorial Research Fund.
Maria Julia at Lavagem do Bonfim (Cleansing of Bonfim). Photograph from anthropologist Ruth Landes' 1938-1939 field research on Afro-Brazilians and Candomblé in Brazil in the city of Bahia (now known as Salvador). Typed explanation of print by Landes: "1. Maria Julia, the most ancient priestess of her cult, said to be over one hundred years of age."
Local Numbers:
Image ID.landes_photo_brazil_91-4_0001
Related Materials:
For related images, see landes_photo_brazil_91-4_0004, landes_photo_brazil_91-4_0231, landes_photo_brazil_91-4_0274, and landes_photo_brazil_91-4_0275 in the Ruth Landes Papers.
Collection Restrictions:
The Ruth Landes papers are open for research. The nitrate negatives in this collection have been separated from the collection and stored offsite. Access to nitrate negatives is restricted due to preservation concerns.
Access to the Ruth Landes papers requires an appointment.
Ruth Landes papers, National Anthropological Archives, Smithsonian Institution
Sponsor:
The revision of this finding aid and digitization of portions of the collection were made possible through the financial support of the Ruth Landes Memorial Research Fund.
Photograph of Menininha (bottom), Candomblé high priestess of Gantois temple, and her assistant. Photograph from anthropologist Ruth Landes' 1938-1939 field research on Afro-Brazilians and Candomblé in Brazil in the city of Bahia (now known as Salvador). Typed explanation of print by Landes: "2. Two principal priestesses of this temple. The dark one, Josefa, is the 'mother in godhood' (see ms.), and the light one is an assistant." Alternate typed explanation by Landes: "The dark one is the distinguished Menininha."
Local Numbers:
Image ID.landes_photo_brazil_91-4_0002
Collection Restrictions:
The Ruth Landes papers are open for research. The nitrate negatives in this collection have been separated from the collection and stored offsite. Access to nitrate negatives is restricted due to preservation concerns.
Access to the Ruth Landes papers requires an appointment.
Ruth Landes papers, National Anthropological Archives, Smithsonian Institution
Sponsor:
The revision of this finding aid and digitization of portions of the collection were made possible through the financial support of the Ruth Landes Memorial Research Fund.
Photograph from anthropologist Ruth Landes' 1938-1939 field research on Afro-Brazilians and Candomblé in Brazil in the city of Bahia (now known as Salvador). Typed explanation of print by Landes: "3. The very youngest priestess of the house!"
Local Numbers:
Image ID.landes_photo_brazil_91-4_0003
Collection Restrictions:
The Ruth Landes papers are open for research. The nitrate negatives in this collection have been separated from the collection and stored offsite. Access to nitrate negatives is restricted due to preservation concerns.
Access to the Ruth Landes papers requires an appointment.
Ruth Landes papers, National Anthropological Archives, Smithsonian Institution
Sponsor:
The revision of this finding aid and digitization of portions of the collection were made possible through the financial support of the Ruth Landes Memorial Research Fund.
Maria Julia, Candomblé priestess, at Lavagem do Bonfim. Photograph from anthropologist Ruth Landes' 1938-1939 field research on Afro-Brazilians and Candomblé in Brazil in the city of Bahia (now known as Salvador). Typed explanation of print by Landes: "4. Is the same as #1., seen at full length in the typical priestess garb walking to an important ceremony."
Local Numbers:
Image ID.landes_photo_brazil_91-4_0004
Related Materials:
For related images, see landes_photo_brazil_91-4_0001, landes_photo_brazil_91-4_0231, landes_photo_brazil_91-4_0274, and landes_photo_brazil_91-4_0275 in the Ruth Landes Papers.
Collection Restrictions:
The Ruth Landes papers are open for research. The nitrate negatives in this collection have been separated from the collection and stored offsite. Access to nitrate negatives is restricted due to preservation concerns.
Access to the Ruth Landes papers requires an appointment.
Ruth Landes papers, National Anthropological Archives, Smithsonian Institution
Sponsor:
The revision of this finding aid and digitization of portions of the collection were made possible through the financial support of the Ruth Landes Memorial Research Fund.
Candomblé priestesses at Lavagem do Bonfim (Cleansing of Bonfim). Photograph from anthropologist Ruth Landes' 1938-1939 field research on Afro-Brazilians and Candomblé in Brazil in the city of Bahia (now known as Salvador). Typed explanation of print by Landes: "5. A file of priestesses caught carrying sacred water in special jugs, and carrying small brooms with which they will ceremonially wash the Church on the day of their principal god."
Local Numbers:
Image ID.landes_photo_brazil_91-4_0005
Collection Restrictions:
The Ruth Landes papers are open for research. The nitrate negatives in this collection have been separated from the collection and stored offsite. Access to nitrate negatives is restricted due to preservation concerns.
Access to the Ruth Landes papers requires an appointment.
Ruth Landes papers, National Anthropological Archives, Smithsonian Institution
Sponsor:
The revision of this finding aid and digitization of portions of the collection were made possible through the financial support of the Ruth Landes Memorial Research Fund.
Photograph from anthropologist Ruth Landes' 1938-1939 field research on Afro-Brazilians and Candomblé in Brazil in the city of Bahia (now known as Salvador). Possibly priestess of Omolu from cacao town of Ilhéus, referred to by Landes in her book, City of Women (page 236). Typed explanation of print by Landes: "6. One such priestess whose jug is also filled with fine flowers, and she is dressed in white, the color of that god named Oshala."
Local Numbers:
Image ID.landes_photo_brazil_91-4_0006
Related Materials:
See also landes_photo_brazil_91-4_0276 and landes_photo_brazil_91-4_0259 in Ruth Landes Papers for other images of same person.
Collection Restrictions:
The Ruth Landes papers are open for research. The nitrate negatives in this collection have been separated from the collection and stored offsite. Access to nitrate negatives is restricted due to preservation concerns.
Access to the Ruth Landes papers requires an appointment.
Ruth Landes papers, National Anthropological Archives, Smithsonian Institution
Sponsor:
The revision of this finding aid and digitization of portions of the collection were made possible through the financial support of the Ruth Landes Memorial Research Fund.
Followers of Sabina, Candomblé priestess, taking part in offering ceremony to Iemanjá. Photograph from anthropologist Ruth Landes' 1938-1939 field research on Afro-Brazilians and Candomblé in Brazil in the city of Bahia (now known as Salvador). Typed explanation of print by Landes: "7. Priestesses of all ages in a very elaborate dress carrying on their heads a boat that holds a mermaid and various gifts with which they will go on a short pilgrimage and offer all to the goddess of the sea."
Local Numbers:
Image ID.landes_photo_brazil_91-4_0007
Related Materials:
For related images, see "Ruth Landes field photographs from Bahia, Brazil, 1938 September."
Collection Restrictions:
The Ruth Landes papers are open for research. The nitrate negatives in this collection have been separated from the collection and stored offsite. Access to nitrate negatives is restricted due to preservation concerns.
Access to the Ruth Landes papers requires an appointment.
Ruth Landes papers, National Anthropological Archives, Smithsonian Institution
Sponsor:
The revision of this finding aid and digitization of portions of the collection were made possible through the financial support of the Ruth Landes Memorial Research Fund.
